Dear Studio Red,
This week was our first week back together! Can you share a true story with your family about how you played? Could you tell them the true story about the seagull?
Love, Lauri and Emily
OUR WEEK IN PARTS
INDOOR EXPLORE
We have mixed colors with watercolors. How will you mix colors with tempera?
"I'm gonna keep looking at my recipe card. I did number two. Now three. now I'm on number four." Ruth
How will we tell stories with tree roots, logs, and bark?
This week Will invited Kaya to return to a previous project. “Kaya, do you want to make it to the gold rug?” He asked as they played with metal chains and hooks. “Do you want to try and go around the classroom?” Kaya responded. The two began inviting more and more children into the play. The next day, we gave them two buckets of colorful links to help reach all the spaces in the studio. They began to envision the chain as a train and the project extended to include materials and tools from three different spaces.
How did you build a train?
What happens when we add water to tree blood?
How can we help our seeds grow?
“When I smashed this, I only smashed the outside. See? The seed.” Charlie Schubert
“There’s three that we did that with. Now four. It went all the way over here!? How did it do that?” Will
A small group signed up to plan how we could help our seeds grow. Most envisioned how we could plant the seeds outside. Charlie Nicholson recorded her idea for planting inside. This week we began with her plan. We also followed the first step of Jackson’s idea: cracking open the acorn shell to get the seed out.
BOOKS
This week Kieran brought in Little Bear for her birthday. We read the other three chapters throughout the week. So many children shared that they were familiar with this book.
OUTDOOR EXPLORE
Did you join the ice cream store story?
REFLECTION MEETING
Kieran and Katie read and follow Charlie’s plan. Then they share their work with the big group and many began to ask questions to further their understanding. The conversation centered around how we will know when to water the seeds.
How did Katie and Kieran plant the seeds?
GREETINGS & GAMES
How do you play the bubble game?
STORY WORKSHOP
What true story ideas did you save in your sketchbook?
This week we practiced a tool storytellers use to save their ideas. We drew and wrote notes on a page in our sketchbooks. We saved stories from home and stories from school. Louis and Will took the author’s chair!
THINKING WITH A LINE
We reflected on the black and white designs we have been tracing. We told the children that people call these mandalas. To help us define this concept, we wondered, How are they the same? We then looked at other designs and paused at each one to ask, “Is this a mandala?” With a straight line and a curved line we then tried to create our own mandalas.
